On the occasion of a 2010 concert at Olympia Hall in Paris, Mr. Legrand was asked by French radio whether any of his dreams had gone unfulfilled.

“Off the top of my head,” he said, “I regret that I didn’t learn more languages, visit certain countries and listen to music that I don’t yet know about. In other words, there’s a whole cultural process that it’s been difficult for me to undertake because I’ve written a lot, worked, traveled, played around. So I haven’t had time to read some of the extraordinary books that I still think about.”